Jupitarian
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Party Member Implementation Poll
🕑 Added 2024-11-26 00:23:00 +0000 UTCI didn't really mean to stay silent for this long, but some stuff that I wanted to post didn't quite pan out in a timely fashion, so I figured I might as well make a poll for you all to weigh in on in the meantime. This is something that I've been thinking about for a while, and I'm not 100% sure about how to move forward with it.
It's a bit of a long winded explanation, but this decision will have a big effect on how the game's narrative plays out in the future, so I hope you all take the time to read it.
Essentially, the dilemma has to do with when new party members join and how they would be integrated with the dialogue and story of Fataclysm. There isn't really an easy way to do it any way you slice it, so I figured I might as well make a poll to help decide what should happen.
To lay the foundation for the question at hand, I also want to make a clarification:
I've stated in the past that new party members will replace specific slots in the group. So, for example, I said that Leona would have to swap for Estelle when she gets added. I've changed my mind on this, and with the adjustments to the code in v0.1.3, it's more than possible for party members to easily swap with anyone. So, in the future, building your party will actually be something that you can do, instead of there only being binary choices for each role.
However, this decision poses a massive problem - dialogue. If any combination of four party members is possible, then making dialogue actually work will be a complete nightmare, without even mentioning the fact that every added party member in the future would make things exponentially more difficult.
So, to remedy the dialogue conundrum, my solution would be for every party member to travel with the group at all times. Obviously this introduces some new problems (don't tell Kass), but I believe that the slightly contrived things that would need to happen in the plot to justify it would be much more preferable to the mess of dialogue that I would have to sort through with the other option.
Mechanically, you would still have 4 party members, but every character that's joined the group would participate in dialogue no matter who's in your party. Kinda like a JRPG where you pick only four party members to do all the fighting, and then everyone pretends that they contributed in the cutscene afterwards.
Obviously from a narrative standpoint it's pretty stupid that only an arbitrary number of people get to do things in combat (and the whole JRPG example is pretty silly), but I have some cool ideas for how benched party members can still contribute, how their progression would work mid-run, the ability to swap them out, and so on. I can't say anything for certain about that right now, but I think it'll make gameplay more interesting overall.
Also, as a quick note, this is all happening under the assumption that there will be 7 total party members once the game is "done" and 1.0 is released, including the current 4. So, that would be Leona plus two other unspecified characters joining the group before the game is actually beatable.
Anyways... with that extremely long clarification out of the way, it's time for the actual point of the post. How/when should future party members actually join? The two different ideas that I've come up with are as follows:
Scripted/Unmissable Join Times: With this option, party members would join at the same time for everyone. So, for example, when you first enter the Palace, Leona would join for every player no matter what they do. I'll come right out and say that I prefer this option, for a few reasons:
-New party members can always be directly involved in the narrative or story of a specific layer, instead of having their story locked behind recruiting them first. This would also let me much more easily tell the actual story of the game without having to worry about future party members as much!
-Dialogue can be much more involved because it's far easier to know who's in the party at any given time, instead of having to shove in random characters for each and every little scenario that might exist
-The only extra work that I would have to do for old dialogue would be on previous layers that don't include the particular party member, which is much easier than potentially having to rework literally every piece of dialogue in the game. The linearity and guarantee of when party members join would also make this task much easier. Obviously it would still be alot of work, but less of an exponentially difficult pain in the ass.
However, this option wouldn't come without downsides. There would definitely be pacing problems with the rate at which party members join (though I would obviously work on them so they're less of an issue), and the story would overall be more linear. I would also have to rewrite a good amount of the dialogue in the Palace to account for this change, but I'm fine with that.
Personally I don't mind linearity in games, but this poll exists so I can find out if you all feel the same way. As outlined above, I personally feel that the big upsides of scripted join times would far outweigh any new issues with pacing or linearity.
Unscripted/Missable Join Times: With this option, party members would join whenever certain requirements are fulfilled, and thus the time of recruitment would vary from player to player. For example, Leona would join the party only after her friendly encounters have been pursued and (potentially) a quest is done for her.
This approach would allow you all to recruit party members at different times, essentially making the progression of when they join entirely nonlinear. While this would be a cool concept, I think that the difficulties missable party members would add to all dialogue across the entire game, as well as to the overall narrative, would be very detrimental.
However, if you all value the idea of party members joining only after you've properly "earned" their loyalty through some progression or quest over multiple runs, then I'm open to hearing out the idea.
Now obviously this poll setup isn't very fair for both sides, but I just wanted to make it clear that I've thought alot about what either option has to offer (despite the fact that I definitely came up short on the second one). To be entirely honest, this is intended as less of a poll and more of me making sure that you all are on board with the idea of party members joining based on story progression. Obviously I'm biased here, but I want to make sure that everyone agrees on what the best path forward is instead of just making a decision on my own.
Hope my yapping didn't bore you all to death, but I figured this was important enough to make a long post about. Also, if anyone has any ideas about a different way that I could go about all of this, feel free to leave them in the comments.
(thanks bun)
Comments
Spuddrington Tatortot
I'd offer, in order to ensure that the max limit of combatants being 4 (necessitating the swapping of certain people in certain roles) makes narrative sense, there should be a slight narrative emphasis on either the number 4 or the 4-man party composition (frontline fighter, tank, dps, support) throughout the floors (like murals/graffiti on the walls or NPCs yapping about the "Prophecy of 4" or Xylana having tetraphobia), alluding to some magic rule that requires a combat party to be 4 people. On the other hand, if you don't want have the "magic 4-man party rule" interfering with the narrative, perhaps have the folks not in the main combat group provide occasional support from the far-backline (Leona might randomly cast regen on somebody throughout the fight, Estelle might empower a frontline fighter or give a backline fighter stealth/dodge tokens, Astrid gives somebody a block), though once everyone's unlocked, this could get broken quick
Alec McGrew
So my opinion is between all characters in party dialogue and only 4 in party only is to support the former. I do think with every medium you have to make compromises somewhere. It's better to make a compromise there then one on the WG turn based combat integration aspect that is the appeal. Also for a one programmer operation take a huge logistic load off your shoulders for better update speed is necessary.
Teetertootertatertot
I love earning my characters but as you are working on the code alone it's simply the correct answer for it to be linear. And so I propose that every new character joins the party at the start of the new layer butt they don't get added to the 'roster' until certain requirements are met. E.g. Leona joins the effort at the start of The Palace and she hass some options and dialogue in certain events and such however you can't do battle with her in the team unless you find her room repeatedly and complete her yapp sessions. People feel like they 'earned' the party member and the load on your back is lifted for coding(hopefully).
Kronked
Maybe if you swap out characters they have to transfer their weight to whoever they’re swapping with, could maybe have some dialogue depending on the amount. Could maybe cost an energy to do so.
Jupitarian
I'm thinking about adding something like that, but it presents a pretty big challenge when it comes to balance, so I'll need to figure that out first.
Jupitarian
It's an interesting proposal, but I don't think that kind of thing would really pan out in Fataclysm, especially considering how much characterization someone like Leona has gotten (and how much more she will be getting).
Dragon_ANGL
Continuing in on the JRPG example, perhaps (thinking of non-turn based JRPGs) have the other party members have a "tag in" system, where the previous slender lookers on swap fat levels with the person they're replacing - or for an easier time, just have separate fat levels, and thus 'extra lives' for battles?
GamerLucario
I think the best way to go about this is the way NIKKE does it. Only the main characters are in the story. They do add other characters into the story but they aren’t added to the party and those in the party (unless they’re the main characters cus duh) aren’t in the story. So this will allow the characters to be in the story when you choose but the characters unlocked when the player wants them unlocked. Or maybe this is all a bad idea I dunno I never made a game before lol
tacobitetoughguy
Amazing, that answered my questions perfectly! Thank you!
Jupitarian
For the first question, I assume you're asking if party members would be permanently unlocked. The answer is yes, they would be able to be selected at the start of any run pretty much no matter what after you recruit them. In terms of swapping characters mid-run, I'm not fully decided on that quite yet. I'll probably add something along those lines, but I want it to not break the game's balance. All previous scenes will have dialogue from new party members. Like I said, adding this will be alot of work, but not nearly as much as it would be in some other situations.
tacobitetoughguy
I think you as the developer should choose what you'd prefer to do. I'll say it'd be cool to have some objectives that need to be done in order to get the next character (ie. hypothetical new character only will join the team if under 50% of max weight on all characters at a specific time, if this 'specific time' is tied to an event then sure). It could change the way players strategize for their teams, focusing on more offence or defence type builds to meet these optional objectives. I do have questions tho regarding how would new game+ works: 1) Do you keep your characters after you've unlocked them? 2) Can you swap them mid-run or once you choose are you locked in until you obtain a new character? 3) Will repeatable events and scenes have additional dialogue from new characters? Sort of flavour-text like the gourmand for example?
Jupitarian
:thehorr
bun_w
inb4 "you yap too much eat a mf riceball"
bun_w
The jrpg tomfoolery of everyone acting like they helped take down a boss even though only 4 party members actively fought is fine and i dont think you should have to worry about that aspect! I like the idea of the party members being active from the get go, but perhaps every time you head into a new layer for the first time, we get a longer bit of story like the intro where the combat aspect is sidelined for you to tell the story and guarantee the new party member's arrival. I assume each time youd go to a new layer, you'd probably have the party end up returning to base to sort of recoup and form a plan after seeing the new environment and meeting their new party member, and im already thinking of silly hijinks that may ensue when the party reaches a new layer for the first time! With the addition of the party all being one unit with every character in the travelling phase, it could open up to more of those event like Mallary Function's where you have to "sacrifice" a party member for some benefit, as you'd have a backup unit in reserve to swap in. This is all very exciting!!! cannot wait for the gang to get split up due to unforeseen circumstances on layer 3 and aria meets the new party member and theyre all badass and stuff together only for them to reunite with the party and the dumb pink cat is making out with the purple one
Spidermonkey124
Real!!!!
Spidermonkey124
Personally I think you should solve the problem by simply hiring 200 additional writers, storyboarders, voice actors, etc
xXJGRANTXx
I agree with it being better for dialogue and narrative, but I would like to see some way to earn loyalty as you laid it out since the way Leona was implemented made her seem like she was actively a part of the Palace's community as it were If it's not possible, no biggie, I'd rather the better narrative and ease of development
bun_w
you yap too much eat a mf riceball
